In Washington, D.C., the Trump administration faced sharp judicial scrutiny Tuesday over its latest attempt to reinstate a ban on transgender military service. In Talbott v. United States, the Justice Department defended a 2025 policy barring trans people from serving unless they deny their identity or forgo medical transition. But the three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals wasn’t buying it. Judge Cornelia Pillard brought out the contradictions, saying, “Someone who has never been diagnosed with gender dysphoria but who has transitioned is explicitly banned…It’s clearly banning all transgender persons.”
DOJ attorney Jason Manion insisted the ban is about deployability and medical fitness, not identity; on which Pillard shot back: “Your argument is that you can serve as a transgender person as long as you don’t serve as a transgender person. Is that right?”
Even Judge Gregory Katsas—appointed by Trump—pushed back, asking, “What sense does it make to make it harder to stay in than to get in?”
Manion, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz, repeatedly admitted he didn’t know how the policy would be applied, including to veterans or reservists, and couldn’t explain how the military would even identify trans service members. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said, “Last time around, they tried to claim there are transgender people who are fine serving in their birth sex. But that’s not what being transgender means. It’s gaslighting. It’s a pretense. It’s a dodge.”
The hearing followed a March district court session where Judge Ana Reyes, herself LGBTQ, accused the DOJ of “cherry-picking” and misquoting research and ordered their attorneys to actually read the studies they were citing. The Trump administration has already lost a similar case in Washington state just last week. The 9th Circuit upheld protections for trans service members, finding no evidence that inclusive service harms the military. While the ban is under scrutiny, the lives and futures of trans troops—and the integrity of our military hang in the balance.
